Pennant

I have a 1969 New York Mets National League championship pennant for the World Series. It is in good shape, with the names of all the ballplayers and the manager. Do you know its value? Because 1969 brought the "Miracle Mets" their first National League pennant (and their first World Series victory) and because Mets and Yankees material is sought by collectors, your 1969 Mets NL champions pennant (sold at the World Series) is worth $20 to $30, according to Bob Schmierer, who heads the Eastern Pennsylvania Sports Collectors Club, Box 37, Maple Glen, Pa. 19002.

TAKE THIS job and shove it. That's basically what Rangers fan Boris Briskin told his boss when told he couldn't take time off to watch his team clinch the American League pennant. According to Yahoo! Sports, Briskin, of Plano, Texas, quit his job as a law clerk in Southern California after being told he couldn't get vacation time to go to Arlington for Game 6 of the American League Championship Series. The Rangers defeated the Yankees, 6-1, in that game to advance to the World Series.

"Sometimes," Phillies manager Lee Elia likes to say, "you can add by subtracting. " And sometimes you can lose by winning, which is what the Phillies may very well have done five years ago. To Bill Giles and his partners, 1983 must have seemed like the start of a giddy joy ride. Just one year under their belts as the proud owners of a major-league baseball franchise and they were in a World Series. "I almost had to laugh after '83," said Paul Owens, who came down from the front office in midseason to manage.

As the Phillies swaggered onto the Nationals Park grass for the start of their 2010 season, they looked nothing like a team that less than two months later would detour into a forest of self-doubt. They'd been to consecutive World Series and, given the trade for Roy Halladay and the shortcomings of many National League rivals, seemed destined for a third. "With the additions they made and the offense they had, they were head and shoulders above everybody else. They had an edge," said John Smoltz, the longtime Braves pitcher.

If history can repeat itself, the Philadelphia Phillies should win the National League pennant this year. I know that's a bold prediction considering the way the Phillies have played so far this season. The circumstances, however, make this an easy prediction. Every year a filly (please note the difference in spelling) has won the Kentucky Derby, the Phillies have claimed a pennant. So until Winning Colors darted across the finish line May 7, I'd written off the Phillies.

The calm before the storm. Philadelphia is poised to semi-explode this evening - all the Phillies have to do is win the National League pennant over the Atlanta Braves in Game 6 at Veterans Stadium. The super explosion, of course, will follow the Phillies' World Series victory. But that's next week. Two astonishing victories Sunday and Monday in Atlanta left the Phillies one game shy of their first pennant since 1983. And acting very much like a team of destiny. The signs of fan excitement were everywhere: the Phillies cap worn by an ophthalmologist's receptionist, friendly waves among red-jacketed strangers, wisps of conversation at every lunch counter and water cooler, even Phillies chit-chat on WXPN-FM's public radio begathon.

For much of the 1983 baseball season, the Phillies seemed more like a wax museum than a team. There were familiar faces everywhere, lots of history, but no signs of life. They had Joe Morgan, Pete Rose, Steve Carlton and Mike Schmidt, but all they did was collect dust for four months in the National League East. They were sputtering along in fourth place, two games under .500 in late July. Morgan was hitting around .200. Rose was mired in the low .240s. The team picture was a Dorian Gray portrait, aging by the day. Sixteen players on the roster were over the age of 30. Four were in their 40s, with Rose the oldest at 42. "The Wheeze Kids", that was the label Daily News columnist Stan Hochman put on them in spring training, and it stuck.

Imagine how envious Larry Bowa would be if he could see and feel the energy that pulsates through the Chicago Cubs clubhouse these days. A year after sharing living space with the Phillies in the National League basement, the Cubs also have postseason aspirations. But while the Phillies' collective pulse thub-dubs slowly as October approaches - maddening their manager - the Cubs' heartbeat races as if it just gulped down a dozen double espressos. Look behind the counter and you will see that Sammy Sosa is the guy serving up those super-charged cups of caffeine.

They've played a large part of their season with light-hitting Rey Sanchez at shortstop, the since-demoted Gary Scott at third base, the immortal Doug Dascenzo in center field. Yet, the Chicago Cubs, 9 1/2 games out of first place on July 18 and a team that has scored the fewest runs in the majors, find themselves in the middle of a pennant race. God bless the wretched National League East where anybody can be winner. "There's no Oakland or Toronto here," said Larry Himes, the Cubs' executive vice president of baseball operations, "and in that sense, it's good because fan interest is up. Everybody is involved.

Facing a slew of witnesses who say they saw him fatally shoot two people at a Ridley bar, Teryl Wyrick yesterday began the fight for his life. From the outset, Wyrick's attorney, John G. McDougall, conceded that his client did, in fact, shoot Hope Popoleo of Parkside and Richard Pepe of Glendolden as they played pool at the Pennant sports bar last April. McDougall instead busied himself with saving Wyrick's life. If the Delaware County jury hearing Wyrick's case finds him guilty of first-degree murder, it could then sentence him to death.

ARLINGTON, Texas - Nelson Cruz is again swinging his big boomstick in October for the Texas Rangers, who are one win from their second consecutive trip to the World Series. Only 31/2 years ago, Cruz was waived at the end of spring training but went unclaimed and was sent to the minors. It's been quite a turnaround. "That period of time in Nelson's life, he hadn't arrived yet. You know, we all got to experience things before we finally make our way to where we want to be," manager Ron Washington said Friday.

TAKE THIS job and shove it. That's basically what Rangers fan Boris Briskin told his boss when told he couldn't take time off to watch his team clinch the American League pennant. According to Yahoo! Sports, Briskin, of Plano, Texas, quit his job as a law clerk in Southern California after being told he couldn't get vacation time to go to Arlington for Game 6 of the American League Championship Series. The Rangers defeated the Yankees, 6-1, in that game to advance to the World Series.

The Reds are an interesting bunch. Especially Dusty Baker. The man is an odd cat - or dog, rather. He's more of a dog guy, as it turns out. This week, in the run-up to the National League division series, the Reds' manager happily offered some fascinating personal information. Among the revelations: a detailed recap of a scrap he got into with an unruly crew of Canadians during the 1981 World Series - a brawl that rendered him one-handed for days thereafter because he ostensibly mashed a few of our northern neighbors into creamy poutine.

LUCKY ME. IN 1966, my first season as the Phillies beat writer, they were favored to win the National League pennant. Sports Illustrated said so. They became an even hotter pick on April 21 when GM John Quinn acquired manager Gene Mauch's biggest need - veteran righthanded starting pitching. A solid No. 3 and 4 to buttress aces Jim Bunning and Chris Short. All it cost Quinn to pry former 24-game winner Larry Jackson and elderly swing man Bob Buhl from the Cubs was an obscure rookie reliever named Ferguson Jenkins, reserve first baseman John Herrnstein and outfield prospect Adolfo Phillips.

So the Phils end up with Cincinnati. Were the Reds the best possible scenario for them? Or would you have preferred to see them play San Francisco or San Diego? Please refrain from basing your decisions on which city you'd prefer to have visited. I don't think it matters whom the Phils play. I just don't see anyone in the National League beating them, not with their pitching and their bats. The only pitfall could be overconfidence, and Uncle Cholly ain't gonna let that happen. Considering Page 2 doesn't travel until the NLCS, I'm thrilled to get Cincy out of the way. People actually live there?

It isn't a long season. Not anymore. For months, baseball people dismiss all mishap and misfortune by invoking the grueling marathon of the schedule. Slumps, injuries, bad plays and questionable managerial moves ? they're all swept away with those four words: "It's a long season. " In April and May, June and July, it's true. There's time, always time. But now, a week into September, the long season is down to 22 games. The Phillies, facing the twin challenges of reaching the playoffs and setting themselves up to make a strong run, played Tuesday night with September urgency.

As the Phillies swaggered onto the Nationals Park grass for the start of their 2010 season, they looked nothing like a team that less than two months later would detour into a forest of self-doubt. They'd been to consecutive World Series and, given the trade for Roy Halladay and the shortcomings of many National League rivals, seemed destined for a third. "With the additions they made and the offense they had, they were head and shoulders above everybody else. They had an edge," said John Smoltz, the longtime Braves pitcher.

JOE DiMAGGIO knew when it was time. He told reporters during 1951 spring training that it would be his final season. No. 5 had lost 3 prime years to WW2 and the Yankees had made him baseball's first $100,000 player. But his final years were weighted by a succession of injuries and illness. There was a poignant moment of foreshadowing the final day of the 1949 season, the Yankees playing the Red Sox and the winner going to the World Series. With the Yankees leading comfortably in the ninth, the great centerfielder failed to catch a routine - for him - fly that went for a two-run triple.

  They had Stan (the Man) Musial, who would coil into that distinctive peek-a-boo stance and lash 3,630 base hits. They had Enos (Country) Slaughter, a swashbuckler who counted any game in which he didn't look like he'd been wallowing in a pig pen a failure. And they had not one but two 20-game winners in MVP Mort Cooper and rookie Johnny Beazley. And yet despite that largesse, the St. Louis Cardinals found themselves sleepwalking through the first two-thirds of the 1942 season.

THE CAROUSEL ridden by major league baseball's 30 teams has something in common with the planet we all ride upon. Earth makes one full revolution around the sun in what we call a year. MLB's merry-go-round makes one full revolution in what we call a season. After trading a kid righthander named Ferguson Jenkins and a couple of bench players to the Cubs for established righthanders Larry Jackson and Bob Buhl, Phillies general manager John Quinn said this: "The golden ring only comes around once a year and when you've got a chance to grab it, you've got to do anything it takes because you may never be that close again.